


Feelings Are Dumb

by Wunderchick



Series: Someone more than we expected [2]
Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: F/F, Young Justice AU, rated for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wunderchick/pseuds/Wunderchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't mind that I'm here on a mission?"<br/>"I appreciate your honesty more than I resent the babysitting."<br/>Another laugh.<br/>"You are so feisty, Teresa."</p>
<p>Or: the one where Teresa and Thomas have a fallout and Brenda is sent to check on Teresa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feelings Are Dumb

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, sorry it took me so long to update this series. The rest should be up faster since I'm almost done with work. Also, this is a two-shot, and the second chapter will feature Thomas' point of view. Gally will actually have lines this time around, I promise.

"So how are you enjoying the party so far?"

Thomas jumped in surprise, turning around to come face-to-face with a pair of delicate eyebrows, probably the only delicate feature about Teresa, and they were arched in suspicion. She knew this expression on his face, eyes darting like they were automatically looking for an exit, her adopted brother's open and bare for anyone to read. It screamed 'caught red-handed' and the girl could only sigh in exasperation.

"What the hell were you doing, Thomas?"

"Who, me? Nothing, nothing at... at all."

But his attention span had always been whimsical at best: he was already falling back into whatever trance he had been when Teresa had found him, and his unusual stillness would have almost freak her out if she hadn't know any better (but she did, because she was the Cheshire cat, and _she_ did the freaking people out around here). Not that she'd complain, watching him run around would always deprive her of energy by association, yet it was still highly uncommon to see Thomas utterly motionless. Something must be wrong, the brunette thought, and started searching the room with her eyes for something unsettling, likely to bother Thomas and Thomas alone.

It wasn't a difficult task for her; she may not have any superpowers, the teenager was still a brilliant fighter gifted with a remarkable mind, and she wouldn't even start on her acrobatic skills. The only thing that put a damper on her high rank in their little group was her tendency to get somehow out of hand. And by 'out of hand', their mentors meant 'unapologetically violent'. So, alright, maybe she didn't like playing by their sandbox rules that establish you should never draw more blood than strictly necessary, even when you were fighting some of the worst scumbags the city had ever spawned, and maybe she had never felt remorse for more than two continued seconds, but Cheshire was still one of their best assets, especially during undercover missions--she was an impeccable actress.

It was this latter gift that allowed her to maintain a pokerface when she noticed what Impulse's eyes had just focused on with renewed interest--or rather, _who_.

The guy was huge, towering over the crowd like a statue in an art gallery. He definitely wasn't on a pedestal, though, because Teresa knew who he was and what most people thought of him.

He went by Gally, was good with inanimate objects but bad with humans, and had entirely forgotten all about friendship or trust or even teamwork since his Accident, with a capital a. Which truly wasn't such a bad thing by Teresa's standards because, honestly, if her father figure ever decided to tamper with her body in the name of science without so much as an apology, she would think the worst of the entire human race as well. Not that Gally had ever been extraordinarily socially inclined to begin with, but his new era of distrust had pushed people away so efficiently that Teresa would be damned if anybody ever thought of approaching him by now. Taking chances on a guy who could punch a hole through your face without feeling the impact himself wasn't anybody's favorite sport.

Thomas couldn't know all that, though, because he had never met the guy: he had started training under Flash's mentorship just before Gally's big breakout, hadn't gone out on missions outside of Central and Keystone, and the giant vigilante wasn't part of the team... yet.

This thought caused Teresa to frown in concern, lower lip jutting out ever so slightly. This so-called party's real purpose was to look for potential new recruits, see how well they could get along with the already established members of Nightwing's team and whether their willingness to put their life at stake for the greater good was solid and true. Dedicated team players, that was what they were looking for, and when one took all of this into account, Gally's presence wasn't just surprising: it was a real shocker. Not that he had turned evil, no; but he worked solo for a reason, and Teresa would never had thought the grown-up Justice parade would have let him inside the building at all, given his general (extremely low) level of friendliness.

"Why are you staring at him like that?" Thomas blinked his way back to reality and turned to Teresa once again, a red tint spreading on his cheeks, matching his costume.

"I-I, I'm, I'm not- that's not what--"

"Aw, come on you big baby, I'm not judging. I love inspecting pointy garden tools and wonder what they'd feel like if I fell on them and tore up all the muscles in my body. It's like getting real close to the edge and wondering how much it would hurt to fall all the way down."

The speedster's eyes were now cautiously trained on his best friend, inspecting her face for any indication she had had too much to drink and gone someplace he couldn't follow.

"Teresa... What are you talking about?" is all he managed to say through his confusion.

"Cyborg," she replied pointedly, as though Thomas was the dense one. "He scares the shit out of you."

"Of course he doesn't- Cyborg? That's his name?"

Typical Thomas. Teresa rolled her eyes. "Of course not."

"I didn't mean his birth name," the guy retorted, barely containing his frustration. His sister's games really got on his nerves sometimes.

"His name's Gally. I would tell you his birthday, height and favorite color but sadly I don't give a shit so I never asked."

"What's gotten into you," Thomas muttered, his eyes already back to devouring this Gally dude's everything.

It was without counting on Teresa, who grabbed him by the arm harder that she had meant to and turned him around so they were face to face once more, a scowl slapped back on her face like the jokes and barbs she had been throwing at Thomas seconds ago had never happened.

"You mean what's gotten into _you_ ," she hissed quietly so to not attract unwanted attention. "It's not a friendly guy you're oggling, Thomas, and I'm not even going to ask you why you're checking out a dude who's _half robot_ in the first place. Do not go there under any circumstances, you hear me?"

Her fire got to Thomas, who twisted her hand to free his arm. He'd bet five buckets of chicken wings bruises were already appearing there. Glaring at the brunette, he snarled right back, "wishing someone would have told you that about Ravager?"

Teresa blinked like she had been slapped, then her face turned into a stormcloud: dark, silent, holding lightning bolts in its belly, ready to screech and strike. Thomas regretted his comeback immediately, but not enough to apologize. His mouth was as quick as his feet, and he knew speaking without thinking first was almost always a bad idea, but something about the way Teresa had been denigrating the other guy had struck a cord in the speedster. Still, he should have known better than to bring up _Ravager_ of all people.

"I see how it is," he heard Teresa's voice, distant somehow even though she still stood right by his side. It was hard to tell whether she was closer to strangling him or crying.

Thomas bit down on his lip, eyes cast downwards because the only thing he hated more than making his sister and best friend upset was making her sad. It was a superpower in its own right, and the Flash's protégé found himself hating the fact he even had it in the first place. Silence swallowed up the warmth around the pair in a matter of seconds, thick and unbearable. Then, Impulse felt his teammate leave more than he saw her, and deflated like a balloon. When he looked up, Cyborg was staring at him.

As Teresa made her way through the crowd, she was deadset on finding the closest exit and make a run for it. She needed fresh air and maybe a biting cold wind to snap her out of the memories Thomas had thrown at her. What a heartless little punk.

So, alright, maybe the girl had pushed her luck a bit too far with that Cyborg ordeal, but she had only been trying to protect her brother in her clumsy, self-conscious way. Displays of emotions were never her thing, and he ought to know that. Just like he should have known better than to bring up Harriet again.

A muffled, angry sob bubbled up her throat just as Teresa got to the balcony, hitting her hands hard against the iron railing. The pain in her wrists wasn't enough to lure her attention away, so she bit down hard on her lips. Maybe the blood she'd draw that way would contain the last remnant of Ravager's taste, or voice, the incredible coldness her usually warm eyes had displayed as she had said, "we're not good for each other." What she had truly meant with that was, "you're fooling yourself into thinking I'm not breaking you, but I know I am," and Teresa was too fierce to say she didn't care about good, that Harriet was breaking her right _now_ but she didn't mind, as long as she wasn't tossed away again like she wasn't enough. So she had spat a biting retort, at least later she would think she had, because she couldn't remember anything but the image of Harriet's back as she was leaving her for good.

"The Cheshire cat, out to dazzle some miscreants, then off on her own again."

Teresa opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) and turned away from her impromptu company, because there was a wetness in her eyes she had to conceal, both out of pride and a certain tendency to keep private matters private. Besides, as tough as she could be, the other girl had a heart of gold and could be too compassionate for her own good.

"What are you doing here, Troia?"

She heard a light chuckle, billion light-years away from the strong and unshakable presence she could feel by her side. It was the enemy's most common mistake, underestimating Troia because she looked cute and had soft eyes like that. A few of them healed well enough to go back to business and never make that mistake again.

"Minho told me to come for you. Something about Thomas being worried, I don't know." She paused for a second before scolding gently: "And I told you: call me Brenda."

Teresa snorted. "It's a sucky name for an Amazon."

Troia's laugh echoed, and the un-godly one suddenly remembered tales she had heard long ago, about fairies abducting lost travelers and stealing babies and never giving anything back. She remembered popular illustrations of tiny winged humanoids, draped in petals with feet too tiny for shoes, and the older, more realistic recollections of tiny insects with pointy teeth that had a way to pierce the skin just enough to draw blood, unnoticed, stealing much more than a few drops of your human ichor.

"You don't mind that I'm here on a mission?"

"I appreciate your honesty more than I resent the babysitting."

Another laugh. Signs there were fairies around you: fairy rings, a bazillion of four-leaf clovers, hearing faint sounds like bells chiming or a distant laugh, a tickling sensation on your shoulders or arms, tiny knots in your hair. The only knot at the moment was in Teresa' throat, and it was rather big.

"You are so feisty, Teresa."

"Probably why my own brother thinks it's okay to throw me the lowest blows ever, hm?"

For one heartbeat, then two, there was a strained kind of silence that was only broken once Troia decided she couldn't hold back a much needed sigh any longer, and the vigilante at her side flinched. It was confusing and Brenda didn't know what to make of it as she started to wonder whether accepting this mission was a good idea at all.

"You know he's bad at that. Words, I mean. Clumsy people always do the most damage."

At any other time, Teresa would have ranted about how she knew that better than anybody else, because Thomas was _her_ brother, _she_ had grown up with up, _she_ had helped him get out of his shell; nobody was allowed to explain to her what Thomas was or wasn't, because they didn't know jack shit compared to her.

But this wasn't any other time, because memories of Harriet kept flooding behind her eyelids and the knot in her throat had turned into the kind of lump she thought she had banished at the tender age of six.

Brenda might have noticed, if the way her fingers brushed against Teresa's on the railing were anything to go by. Before the masked vigilante could decide against the uncalled-for touching, the amazon had her hand in a soft, firm grip, and was stroking Cheshire's knuckles with her thumb. It had been years since she last was on the receiving end of an attempt at comforting, and she was taken by surprise; those were two of the many reasons Teresa's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, and her jaws unclenched minutely. It wasn't because it felt nice or genuine or because she had somehow integrated the idea nobody would ever want to come close to her again, at least that's what she kept telling herself over and over until she could pretend to believe it. She was immune to sentiments, they only made you slow on the field and in their line of work, getting attached was surely an even worse idea than broadcasting your secret identity and home address to your archenemies.

"Feelings are fucking dumb," she let out, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed in an attempt to look like she meant it.

Troia didn't object to that, allowing a smile to grace her lips instead because Teresa's hand turned around and grabbed hers right back. They stayed like this a little while longer, not caring much for the cold or anything beside each other's quiet company.


End file.
